Wednesday, May 25, 2016

H.L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” There’s a style of Catholicism that seems haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, might presume upon Grace.

Some Catholics have a problem with mercy. It comes out in the way they react to the preaching of God’s great love and kindness, and often in the way they react to Pope Francis when he stresses it. They don’t react with “This is amazing,” but with earnest warnings not to take mercy too far. Sometimes the cautionary word must be said, but it shouldn’t be a Catholic’s first response to the proclamation of mercy.

The other day on his Facebook page the indispensable Scott Eric Alt quoted the Catechism on the extenuating conditions for suicide (“grave psychological disturbances,” for example) and the possibility that the suicide can be saved. Seemed simple and nothing to argue with.

It was, for some people. The very first commenter warned that the conditions don’t always apply. Another person objected more strongly. “So many people want to fling the door wide open when the Church opens the door a crack to allow for hope. Doing this flinging open suddenly diminishes the severity of sin and would be a sin in itself.” A few others in what turned into a very long discussion jumped in with similar criticisms, even after Scott and others pointed out that no one was making the point the critics were criticizing.

At one point Scott responded: “When I speak about this subject, like similar ones (the fate of babies who die unbaptized), I always find I have to explain that the urge to compassion does not mean that anyone is ‘flinging the door wide open’ and claiming certainty about whether such and such a person is in Heaven.” But that is, in my experience as well as his, what a substantial number of engaged Catholics think and they leap to say so. All he’s offering, Scott explained,

is an urge for compassion — and compassion only — toward people who are suffering so badly they feel there is no escape but to kill themselves. This does not mean suicide becomes something other than grave matter, and it does not mean that any particular person is necessarily saved. It means we don’t know, we leave it to God, we trust in God’s mercy, and we have compassion for the human suffering in front of us.

I would say that there’s something weirdly wrong with the people who react like this, as if the Christian’s first responsibility is not to proclaim the good news of salvation but to make sure that no one presumes upon God’s offer. They sound like (not are, but sound like, let me stress) border guards who don’t care about their country’s virtues but hate the idea that anyone might sneak in.

Other people have noticed this. One of the other commenters wrote, “It’s always telling to me how quickly people point to ‘Oh don’t sound merciful, it will only encourage the sinner’ in such situations.” Another asked: “Why do people practically leap at the opportunity to imagine scenarios in which people will be damned? . . . Few things are a bigger turn-off to non-Christians than the apparent zeal to damn others in conversations about extreme suffering.”

Mr. Mills goes on to opine that people who tend not to extend mercy, tend not to see their own need for mercy.

Do you agree?

Read the whole thing and chime in. I find the subject fascinating... and I personally think David is hitting the nail on the head.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

It took me longer that it should have but I've finally finished Elizabeth's Scalia's Little Sins Mean A Lot. My delay in finishing the book should not however skewer your perception of its worth. In fact, an argument could be made that a number of personal little sins were piling up to prevent me from finishing it earlier.

The reality is that the book is a page turner, much like her previous one, filled with valuable tidbits of truth, sprinkled with morsels of enlightenment, crammed with references to the saints, the Catechism and the Scriptures, all purposed in practically showing the reader what steps to take and/or to avoid in ensuring that he or she stays out of life's swamplands.

Elizabeth's message is a simple one. Yes, it's true that we're not to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, yet it's also true that mountains can be made by stacking mole-hills, particularly self-destructive ones.

We're all familiar, or should be, with deadly sin. Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth are the biggies, the soul-killers, the transgressions fatal to spiritual progress.

But what about their younger cousins, their adolescents, their mini-mes? Elizabeth dives, over 13 chapters, into a variety of mole-hill sins, to include such things as procrastination, self-neglect, gossip, spite, self recrimination. In each of her chapters, she includes sections that detail what Catholicism has to say about those sins and what the faithful Catholic might do to practically deal with them.

As an example, in her chapter on cheating, she advises the cheater to be ruthlessly honest, even brutally honest, with themselves:

We live in an age that does not appreciate such a thing; to be brutally honest with another is considered rude and nearly always considered "insensitive" because it hurts. To be brutally honest with the self hurts too - it clarifies what is lacking on our own character - but it is also a dicey proposition. Once we are willing to admit to ourselves that we're not quite as honest as we think we are - and that if we think we can get away with something, we'll probably try it - then we have to make sure we don't overcorrect ourselves into neurotic scrupulosity. We also have to remember that God is merciful, and that could tempt us into applying great dollops of mercy all over ourselves, which would, by doing nothing to change our behavior, probably sink us further down into the pit.

What is necessary against this sin is sacramental confession: a real examination of where we have cheated, how we have done it, and what we thought we were getting out of it needs to be undertaken, and then confessed. Consider actually writing things down so that you can really be thorough in your admissions, because you are admitting things to God and to yourself, and naming one's sin aloud is often the catalyst for defeating it.

That excerpt for me is the point of the book, the point in fact of Christianity, to understand and embrace sin's defeat. We cannot do this by diminishing the harmful effects that all sin, not just the biggies, have on the believer. Ms. Scalia clearly knows this and her book effectively communicates it.

Do yourself the favor of picking it up, reading it, inwardly digesting it and then passing it on. You'll not regret doing so.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Who among your circle of family, friends and loved ones might be in need of God's great mercy? Who among them might have dragons that need slaying? Who among them might need to experience the invisible but tangible presence of God?

As I write this, and as you read the words written, people all around us are facing desperate situations causing them to, silently or aloud, willingly or instinctively, cry out to God for help and compassion, kindness and forgiveness, healing and love. Indeed, for mercy.

Earlier today, I was made aware of a circumstance where I imagine this kind of crying out either has already, or soon will be, played out. The details are not yet fully known but mercy's need unquestionably revealed, a mercy that by faith can end with inner peace, an inner peace paradoxically birthed by embracing that mercy.

ALT. Your book is ostensibly about healing from painful memories, but you spend a lot of time instead writing about surrender to God. This is a very difficult trick to pull off, and you have said it was deliberate on your part. Why did you choose to write your book that way?

EDEN. ​I’m really glad you picked up on the fact that the book’s invitation to find healing from painful memories is really meant as an entrée into a deeper experience of divine providence. The reason I make that shift is because, from a psychological standpoint—and this is something acknowledged by spiritual writers such as Augustine and Teresa of Avila and beyond—we can’t find healing if we remain fixated on the details of our messy lives. Healing comes through seeking God’s grace that we might cooperate in His plan for us.

So, there is a real need for those of us who have suffered spiritual wounds to stop asking “why did I suffer this wound” and start asking “how can God use me in my woundedness”? When we see how God, in His mercy, wishes to bring us exactly as we are—with all we’ve done and all we’ve suffered—into His divine plan for the salvation of the world, that’s when we find healing.

ALT. Your book’s title announces that it is about mercy, but in what sense do people who suffer painful memories like the loss of a child through no fault of anyone, or sexual abuse, need mercy? Isn’t mercy just for one’s personal sins?

EDEN. Divine Mercy does refer, in its primary meaning, to the mercy of God that forgives our personal sins. But all wounds come from the original sin of Adam that created a crack in all of creation. Jesus, in dying on the Cross, redeemed us both from original sin and from personal sin. God’s mercy therefore saves us not only from our own sins but also from the effects of sin. When we surrender our heart to it, whatever harms us physically or mentally can no longer separate us from Him. It can only draw us closer to Him by making us more like His wounded and risen Son.

ALT: So is your book about mercy, healing, or surrender? Or are these three inseparably connected somehow?

EDEN. ​Yes, that’s exactly right—mercy, healing, and surrender are inseparably connected, and Remembering God’s Mercy is about all three. The part about surrender can be hard because, having suffered evil, we find it hard to trust in the goodness of God. So, I gently walk the reader through the journey of discovering where God is in the reader’s heart right now, even in the midst of suffering. Once you can identify that place in your heart where God’s presence is active, it becomes easier to follow Him toward the healing that He wishes to bring you. For me, as I share in Remembering God’s Mercy, I find God’s active presence in my very desire for Him.

Read the whole thing and then pass it on. It may contain the seeds of that which could sprout into something much needed and necessary.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

His father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.—Luke 15:20

For years the image I kept in my head from the Parable of the Prodigal Son was of this benevolent, rich father, wearing a beard and fancy robe, embracing a son who looked something like a fraternity boy after a weekend of hard partying.

That image got upended some five years ago by a tattooed teenaged girl I encountered at the Gastonia city transit terminal. It was a hot October afternoon, and I had arrived early to meet our son’s caregiver, hoping to pray and watch the sunset. I had just opened the Divine Office app on my iPhone when I spotted her at the end of a bench.

The tattoos or eyeliner or “goth” haircut didn’t seem as unusual as the trenchcoat. She had it buttoned-up despite the 80-degree heat. Seriously tough girl, I thought, as I counted the piercings on her face. Seriously scared girl, I realized, after I saw her eyes.

“Can I use your cell phone?” she asked.

She explained she’d spent 17 hours on buses from Ohio. She was making a short-notice visit to grandparents who’d moved back to town to start a business. It hadn’t gone well, and they were broke.

“And you’re coming here why?” I wanted to ask. A plastic trash bag at her side — filled with all her belongings — told me she had nowhere else to go.

I was three months from ordination. I wanted to do something. Get her a meal. Tell her how much God loves her, proclaim the Gospel. I bowed to the stronger impulse to shut up. The girl and her trash bag made their way to the parking lot. I started Google-searching for homeless shelters.

Five minutes later a gray Delta 88 sputtered up Main Avenue, going just five mph. Good thing because Grandma didn’t wait for the car to stop before exiting and running to embrace the girl.

“I’m sorry” — “No, I’m sorry” filled the air. I glanced over to see the girl whispering in Grandma’s ear and Grandma, stepping back, bug-eyed, as the girl slowly unbuttoned the trenchcoat.

Out came a baby bump. The look on Grandma’s face made me think she was going to turn and run. I thought I’d have to give the girl a ride to a shelter or obstetrician. Maybe I’d proclaim the Gospel.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Norm Pattis is a renown defense lawyer, an author, a frequent guest on the talking head circuit and interestingly enough, he describes himself as someone "who never darkens the door of a church, who never prays, and who is tone deaf to the sound of the divine."

All of which makes this column, written just before Christmas in the New Haven Register, all the more interesting:

I am writing this from Florence, Italy, just after having spent a week in Rome.

And, all at once, I am dumbstruck by the foolishness of the cross.

Paul wrote of this foolishness in his first letter to the church in Corinth: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God,” he wrote.

I am not saved. The cross is foolishness to me. Or so it seemed …

You can’t escape the cross in Italy. It’s everywhere. There are churches seemingly at every square. In recessed alcoves on street corners, religious figures peer out onto passersby. Works of art proclaim a story of sacrifice, salvation, and damnation.

Walk a street in Italy and it as though the statuary keeps an eye on you, reminding you that you are not made of the same enduring stone.

God, it seems, is everywhere.

My family is in Italy in the days before one of my children weds in England. We wanted some time just to ourselves before turning this new chapter. My wife and I headed to Rome for a week alone just before the kids, all of whom are adults now, arrived.

Yes, the Coliseum impresses, and the Forum is endlessly fascinating. Rome is a proud city; it is the seat of a civilization that has endured now for millennia.

But what drove me to tears was the sight of the Vatican, this from a sinner, a man of unclean lips, as the prophet Isaiah might say, who never darkens the door of a church, who never prays, and who is tone deaf to the sound of the divine.

Why so moved?

Yes, the Sistine Chapel is a marvel. Michelangelo’s frescos tell a familiar Biblical tale, and the Last Judgment is a powerful statement about a moral order to the universe. But these works of art are almost too overwhelming to move. I kept saying “wow,” over and over again, as we turned each corner.

But there’s something more substantial than the eye candy, something lingering in the silence. Just what it is, I cannot say, but I know enough to want more of it.

It is easy to scoff at the Church until you stand inside one. There’s a silence in the air, the intimation of something holy. All truly is calm. This story of a virgin and her child is so wildly improbable, yet it speaks a truth I can almost hear: Almost, as if a lover’s glance fell just askew and did not meet my eye.

There is a safety in the confines of the Church I found stunning. Amid the world’s chaos, something stands, and has withstood, the test of time. I imagine finding a place there, if such a thing were possible.

I am suddenly the father of a child in need of healing: “I believe, help thou my unbelief,” the words of Mark in his gospel, come to mind.

So it is the eve of Christmas. I am far from home and familiar rhythms, but close to the ones I love. I am a stranger in a strange land filled with religious symbols reason has taught me to scorn.

We call ours a Hellenistic household. My father is from Crete, my wife is Jewish. We celebrate no religious holidays in a religious way.

But this year, we’ll attend midnight Mass at the Basilica of Sante Croce, at the tomb of Michelangelo. On Christmas, we plan on attending another service at the Cathedral of Sante Maria del Fiore, the Duomo, Brunelleschi’s masterpiece, and Florence’s church. It took more than 100 years to complete this church, one generation after another laboring in love to create a house for an unseen God.

It’s Christmas, and, I say it once again, I am far from home, a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by symbols of a faith I do not share.

Yet I am so filled with longing just now. I’m wishing, once again, for the things I longed for as a child — just one glimpse of the divine, just one whisper from a voice without a body. Jacob’s hip was broken when he wrestled with an angel. Lucky Jacob.

The Church universal, a word made flesh.

We are all filled with that same longing. We are all strangers in a strange land. We all long to catch that glimpse and hear that whisper.

Friday, December 25, 2015

When the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared,not because of any righteous deeds we had donebut because of his mercy,He saved us through the bath of rebirthand renewal by the Holy Spirit,whom he richly poured out on usthrough Jesus Christ our savior,so that we might be justified by his graceand become heirs in hope of eternal life.

Sunday, November 01, 2015

And so this first conviction was to help my Catholic friends to see the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ, to show them the Bible, and to show them that in the Bible, you just accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and that's all it takes. None of this claptrap: Not Mary, not the saints, not purgatory, not devotions, just asking Jesus to be Savior and Lord.

Around that time I was dating a girl who was Catholic, and we were becoming more serious. But I knew there was no future in our relationship if she remained Catholic. So I gave to her a very large volume, a book by Loraine Boettner entitled Roman Catholicism. It's known as the bible of Anti-Catholicism. It's four hundred and fifty plus pages filled with all kinds of distortions and lies about the Catholic Church. But I didn't know that at the time, so I shared it in good faith with her. She read it from cover to cover. She wrote me that summer and said, "Thanks for the book; I'll never go back to Mass again." And I say that with a certain shame and sorrow, but I say that to illustrate the sincerity that many Bible Christians have when it comes to opposing the Catholic Church. I figured that if the wafer they're worshipping up on that altar is not God, then they're idolaters, they're pagans, they are to be pitied and opposed. If the Pope in Rome is not the infallible vicar of Christ who can bind hundreds of millions of Catholics in their beliefs and practices, then he's a tyrant. He's a spiritual dictator pure and simple. And because I didn't think he was the infallible vicar, I thought it was very reasonable for me to help Catholics to see the same thing in order to get them to leave the Church.

The only Catholic in my family on both sides was my beloved grandmother. She was very quiet, very humble, very holy, I have to admit. And she was also a devout Catholic. When she passed away, I was given her religious belongings by my parents. I went through her prayer book and her missal, and then I found her rosary beads. All of this stuff just made me sick inside. I knew my grandmother had a real faith in Jesus, but I wondered what would all of this mean. So I tore apart her rosary beads, and I threw them in this waste can. I thought of these beads almost like chains that at last she was broken free from. That was the second aspect of my own outlook: that these people might have some faith but it was just surrounded by lies, and so they needed loving Bible Christians to get them out.